


Unfinished K-Pop Fic (different fandoms)

by uniqlos



Category: 2PM, DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ, K-pop, Super Junior, Wonder Girls
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 14:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 12,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqlos/pseuds/uniqlos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years ago, when I was majorly into K-Pop, I was like, "I wanna be a BNF!" lol how naive. K-Pop fic fandom actually ended up sucking out all my desire to write because y'all are a bit vicious lol. So I have a bunch of unfinished fic lying around and I figured I should just post these up for kicks now that it's been a few years later. Featuring fic about 2PM (my faves), DBSK, Super Junior, Wonder Girls, with a couple of different pairings. Taec and Jay are my faves so most of the fic are about them, and also I wrote most of these during the first half of 2010, which if you know your 2PM, was probably the most anguish-filled time in the fandom. 2012 had nothing on 2010 tbh.</p><p>Most of these were posted on a few anon memes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. taecjay, royalty fic?

Jaebeom is six years old when Jin-young hyung names him as a successor to the throne.

And then Jaebeom is seven when someone attempts to assassinate Jin-young hyung in front of his eyes.

He is terrified: he doesn’t know yet why there are assassination attempts, why he can’t go on living the sheltered existence he had before, why Jin-young hyung can’t suddenly visit him because he’s recovering, with Ji-hoon hyung clucking around him disapprovingly and refusing to let anyone near him, not the least Jaebeom. 

(“Ahhhhh Ji-hoon, the boy is only seven, and he must be traumatized.”

“Yes, and he wouldn’t be if you didn’t cook up this stupid plan to name him as the next heir to the throne.”

“Why are you so angry about that? In fact, why is everyone so angry?”

“He isn’t one of us, Jin-young hyung. He wasn’t even born here.”)

Jaebeom is only seven, but he isn’t stupid: he’s heard the disapproving whispers of important ministers of the court

 

A/N: I have no idea what this is supposed to be about, maybe a royalty fic where Jay is a prince and Taec is a loyal warrior of the court? Or arranged marriage? Or I'd just watched Frozen Flower lol maybe this was inspired by that.


	2. something introspective involving Taec moving to America when he was a kid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember what this one was supposed to be about either.

Taecyeon is 12 years old when his family packs up and moves to the United States.

The idea of living in a place called Bedford, Massachusetts is so strange to him. He can say “Bedford”, letting the word lope around his tongue, aware, even then that the English word sounds strange coming from him. This is something he’ll have to improve on when he gets there, how to say “Bedford” without hearing himself cringe inside of him.

He won’t even attempt to say “Massachusetts”, because that’s asking way too much from him.

So they leave Seoul (which is so much easier to pronounce) for a place that is already cold and rainy in the summer. They live in a nice house, in a nice area, and all things concerned, Taecyeon really should be content with his luck.

He isn’t, though, because school is turning out hard and rough. He doesn’t have problems with academics: he’s fine with that, it’s that the kids at school are mean: they point and laugh at him in his funny Korean clothes, speaking his funny Korean, and then sometimes speaking English with the funny Korean accent.

So he locks himself up in his room after school, doing homework and then teaching himself English, but not just English: English like them, where his “r” sounds stay “r” and not “l”, and he remembers where to place his articles when he speaks, he makes sure long words sound long, and short words are short.

Taec is nothing but a fast learner, and within the year, he succeeds in not only scoring the highest gpa in his year, but he also loses the Korean accent, speaks like “one of them” and suddenly has more friends than he knows what to do with.

This is the first time in his life that he realizes: if he can compartmentalize everything around him, then all his plans will turn out okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he was going to meet Jay in school? Or this was just supposed to be his life story? LOL.


	3. inspired by the Cass Beer advert (Tick Tock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I actually remember this one! Inspired by the Cass Beer MV, where Taec and Wooyoung are private investigators, Khun is a scandal-ridden popstar, Junsu is his weary manager, and IIRC Junho and Chansung don't exist because they were too young to be in a beer advert LOL. 
> 
> So my version is, Taec and Jay are investigating Khun's case, Jay screwed up majorly and had to be sent away, Wooyoung replaces him, and Taec realizes that maybe Jay was right all along.
> 
> part 1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVZOdKmfKEU, part 2.

Ok Taecyeon hates airports.

 

_Incheon is busy, bustling all over the place, people running into each other, dragging heavy bags along, babies are crying, and tourists are shrieking all over the place._

_Jay is standing before him, hand shoved down his jeans, head tugged low, not meeting his eyes. Taecyeon’s always been aware of the disparity of their size, but never more in this moment. Jay looks tinier, somehow, as if he could almost will himself to disappear._

_Tacyeon wouldn’t blame him, but at the same time this sick, gnawing feeling in him just wants Jay to go, away from him, from this place and everything they’ve ever known._

_“Taec,” he whispers desperately, “Taec.”_

_Taecyeon sighs. “Jay, what do you want me to say?”_

_“You believe me,” Jay answers, “You trust me, and you’ll take me back to the station, and you’ll show them what I found, what I still have to show you, and we will fix this.”_

_Taecyeon stares at him, battle hardened at all the wrong places. Maybe he can pretend that Jay is a stranger, wasn’t his partner at the station, they weren’t the best detective team the district had ever seen. Maybe they didn’t know each other’s minds so well, weren’t so in tandem, because they weren’t lovers who had lived together for five years now, memorized the pattern of their breathing, and the positions of moles in their back._

_Maybe Jay hadn’t screwed up and cost himself his job, nearly cost Taec his._

_Maybe, maybe, maybe._

_“It’s over, Jay.”_

_“I—“_

Have a nice trip _, he wants to say,_ call me when you land _, he thinks, but he doesn’t, instead Taecyeon turns around, leaves Jay standing there, swallowed up amongst the rush of people like he never knew him in the first place._

_Maybe._

Jang Wooyoung is an okay partner. It takes a bit of adjusting to this slightly sleepy looking boy, fresh out of the police academy, raring to go and dressed in his Sunday best.

 

Taec took one look at him and told him to go back home and change into something more comfortable.

 

So Jang Wooyoung was late to his first day at work.

 

But he finds Wooyoung isn’t sobad. Sure, he’s a little over eager, pushes Taecyeon’s chair back for him, offers to buy them lunch, fidgets when Taecyeon reads over the case reports spread across his desk. Wooyoung’s heart is in the right place when he decides to clean said desk, even if Taec almost has a heart attack when he can’t find anything the next day.

 

There’s also the issue when they go on actual cases, Wooyoung is this cute little boy whose cheeks the policewomen <i> _noonas </i>_ can’t help but squeeze, and even the fucking <i> _suspects_ </i> won’t stop leering at him when Taecyeon starts interrogating them.

 

But his instincts as a detective are fine, if in need of a little honing, but Taecyeon supposes that takes a little bit of experience. He thinks, <i> _not everyone can be like Ja—_ </i>  before he stops himself, berates himself for even thinking that way.

 

 _A new partner,_ he thinks, _a fresh start._

_Get a hold of yourself, Ok Taecyeon. ~~~~_

 

 

Five months after Jay leaves, the accidents start happening again.

 

Taecyeon thinks it’s even a miracle that he’s getting handed the case again; after what happened last time he’d assumed Superintendent Park Jin-young would hand the case off to someone else.

 

“You’re the best we have,” Supt. Park tells him, “just be careful, okay?”

 

Taecyeon’s always been careful, never seeking out a suspect officially unless he was sure that person deserved it. Not like Jay, impulsive and full to the brim with swagger he could only have learned in his training in the United States.

 

It was Jay’s impulse and swagger that got them into trouble in the first place.

 

They had been assigned the Nichkhun Horvejkul case: the famous singer had been dogged by incidents that only indirectly involved him, yet the nature of these incidents had made him a major player anyway: any girl that he was known to be publicly dating (or “carousing with”, his tired Manager Kim Junsu had sighed) always ended up in an accident.

 

At first they’d figured it was an overzealous fan, so they upped protection and he and Jay had spent a month trailing and observing the singer to concerts and most especially, fan signings. Eventually they realized this was getting them nowhere: all of Nichkhun’s fans were all crazy anyway, there was no point waiting for the craziest one to turn up, not when they couldn’t tell.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had all these grand plans of making it suspenseful, and Jay coming in to save the day...this MV came out after he left and lol you can't help but think of him, especially when they send Khun away on a plane.


	4. qmi - comforting zhou mi because only13 stans suck.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this after one of the Super Shows, where Zhou Mi and Henry were treated like shit (more than usual), just after Geng left...IIRC Ryeowook just straight up stopped moving in the middle of "Super Girl" to glare at the crowd lol.

 

When they leave the stage, Kyuhyun’s hand grips one of Zhou Mi’s elbows.

 

They’re both shaking, but it’s a different shaking: Kyuhyun is angry, his fury emanating from him in waves which doesn’t help Zhou Mi at all, because right now he can feel the anger from <i> _everyone_ </i>, including Kyuhyun and it takes that much effort before he decides maybe running away (to Nepal, or wherever else Geng fucked off to) would be the answer to everything.

 

Kyuhyun shoves him against the wall, holds him close, tighter, his face on Zhou Mi’s neck, as if by doing so it won’t stop Zhou Mi from melting, disappearing, doing what a billion angry people in the audience wanted him to.

 

“Kui… Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi whispers desperately, gulping in huge amounts of air that seem to be lacking him, “You hh-have to gg-et ready for the show.”

 

“Shut up,” he snarls back, “just shut up and let me hold you.”

 

Zhou Mi complies, answers by gripping his hands tightly on Kyuhyun’s suite jacket. The air is hot and weary, suffocating him and Kyuhyun’s proximity isn’t helping. But he wouldn’t ask Kyuhyun to take a step back, not now, when he needs someone to tether him to the ground.

 

“None of that,” Kyuhyun says decisively, “meant _anything_ , do you hear me?”

 

Zhou Mi runs his hand furiously up and down his face. “Yeah,” he replies unconvincingly, “yeah, nothing.”

 

Kyuhyun grabs his face and looks at him seriously, his eyes attempting to memorize every detail laid out in front of him. “For every person out there that feels that way,” he says, “there is me, and I will protect you from all of that. When I am there, I make up for _everything_.”

 

They kiss. Kisses with Kyuhyun are normally sweet, languorous, as if they have all the time in the world to do this at their pleasure. Zhou Mi thinks sometimes, _maybe we do have all the time in the world, because everyone kisses their lover the same way, and so no one wants to deny everyone else this pleasure_.

 

Right now though, it’s strong and painful, and Zhou Mi _needs this_ , needs something painful to remind him that this is his reality, but having Kyuhyun there makes everything better. Their teeth gnash against each other, their tongues are in a furious duel and soon their bodies get into it. Zhou Mi, about to lose that one-inch of control, of propriety, is ready to anchor one of his legs against Kyuhyun’s waist.

 

At least until they hear an uncomfortable cough behind them.

 

They turn around; it’s Siwon, his eyes looking up to heaven, mouth moving furiously in prayer. When he realizes they’ve stopped he says, awkwardly, “Um, Kyuhyun. You have to, um, change now.”

 

Kyuhyun starts giggling, a total change from his demeanor before. Inspite of himself, Zhou Mi can feel his mouth tugging up to a smile. Kyuhyun looks back at him, smiling back and kisses him, softer this time, a kiss with a promise that Kyuhyun intends to keep.

 

“Wait for me, ok?” Kyuhyun asks, as they walk back to the dressing room, his hand ensconced in Zhoumi’s bigger one.

 

“Yeah,” he answers, his eyes twinkling, “yeah.”

 

 

Later, he watches Kyuhyun from the side, wonders why he ever thought he’d run away from all of this in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this might actually be finished? Posted at a fic meme.


	5. taecjay -  their kids meet as speed skaters???? lmao.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LOL I guess I was inspired by the Winter Olympics? Even if 2PM kicked Jay out and everything seemed awful, at least the US team was adorbs and were always on livestream, chatting to fans. Four years later, everything has changed. Sigh, Simon Cho. :(

When he is 18, Ok Young-Jae is the fastest man on ice.

He skates laps around the rink, round and round and never stops, the frigid air rushing through him. It’s his drug, the feeling of his skates gliding on the surface, his legs cutting through swathes of ice like grass. There is nothing else that feels this amazing.

Young-Jae supposes this is what his father felt like the days when he was a Korean pop star, the blood pumping through his veins every time he was on stage. The roar of approval in a crowded arena isn’t so different from that of spectators in the rink.

Young-Jae skates furiously, breathlessly, as if the entire world is chasing him from behind, as if the idea of stopping or slowing is impossible. In a meet he normally skates with six other people: they compete against each other, their bodies moving in enraged velocity, in constant motion with each other.

Maybe Ok Taecyeon felt this way too, in his band. They moved, breathed, together, stuck by an invincible force that never let them go.

The story goes though, that Young-Jae only ever hears about five men on stage with his father.

Six, never seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Young-Jae represents Korea in speedskating (Taec might have named him after Jay? IDK), Jay's kid is also a speed skater from Seattle, coached by Apolo Anton Ohno and JR Celski, of course. Then they meet and have a Romeo and Juliet romance maybe.


	6. sad Khunyoung fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SADNESS

Nichkhun is 27 years old when 2PM decide to take an indefinite break. Junsu has to go for his military service soon, and there’s no point continuing a five-member band when everyone else is so close in age anyway.

 

That night, after the press conference announcing the break, after the fans tear up, all six men (Nichkhun will always think of them as boys) have dinner together.

 

Taecyeon raises his glass, a little flushed in the face, his Korean a little worse when tipsy, and says, “This isn’t the end, right? We’re all coming back?”

 

Everyone replies a resounding yes, booming across the table. If anyone notices Nichkhun’s answer is a little quieter, no one says anything.

 

That night in bed, alone, he tells himself, _’m never coming back here._

 

 

A week later, half his things are in boxes, the rest in suitcases, and everything else is given away to coordis, managers, close friends, and to charities in Korea and Thailand.

 

It shouldn’t surprise him that close to nine years in Korea had given him so much accumulated stuff but what surprises him more is he didn’t even buy almost all of this: it’s gifts from devoted fans for birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries that fans keep close to their hearts: the date 2PM debuts, and two certain dates where everything changes. Nichkhun is the only one who gets anything on those days.

 

He’s loath to give away these gifts, from sneakers, shirts, hats, Korean novels (he’d eventually graduated from practice books to reading actual stories), watches, all of them really expensive, but most of them too heavy to bring back to California. The apartment his mom picked out for him is a good size for a young man, but there’s not enough room for nearly close to a hundred pairs of shoes.

 

He’s only just finished sorting what to keep and what to give away when Wooyoung comes to sit on his bed.

 

“Have you, have you decided what to give away?” he asks quietly, looking at the piles scattered around.

 

“Yeah,” Nichkhun answers distractedly, zipping his socks and underwear in a bag together, “take what you want.”

 

“I don’t want anything,” Wooyoung says.

 

“Ok.”

 

There was a time, more than six years ago when the silences between Nichkhun and Wooyoung weren’t strained, when all it took was a meaningful look, a soft smile and one would relax in front of the other, like it was always meant to be. It changes, immediately after Nichkhun comes back from a trip, comes to find that the Wooyoung he knew had changed in three days.

 

He blames himself sometimes, should have blown the trip off, should’ve realized something ( _someone_ ) would get to Wooyoung. He used to wonder, always wanted to ask, _what did they hold over your head that made you give up? Was it family? Pride? Your father? Money?_

 

And in the end Nichkhun stops wondering, just starts living on, counting the days when this nightmare will end, when he is gone from the trap he had unknowingly walked into.

 

Two days later, he has packed everything up, things are mailed to his new apartment

 

 (“A nice place in San Francisco, by the bay,” his mother says, “You’ll be happy,”

and Nichkhun thinks _maybe I don’t deserve happiness, maybe only satisfaction, maybe only average)_

 

and Taecyeon is the only one with him in the car, with Minjae-hyung in the front, driving. When they arrive at the airport, Taecyeon gives him a tight hug, a silent plea of _if you see him please ask him is he okay? Is he happy? And I am sorry and I am waiting and I never stopped waiting_  that Nichkhun knows he will never say because he will chose to forget it, just like he will chose to forget everything else.

 

There is no goodbye dinner because he didn’t want one, Junsu went home early to spend time with his family before enlisting and sooner or later the dorm will be cleaned out, and a new band will move in and make their own memories, and hopefully never the same mistakes.

 

Wooyoung spends the day in bed, and Nichkhun doesn’t say goodbye. It’s fitting, because the ones who always mean the most to him, he never gets the chance to say goodbye.

 

 

San Francisco and the living is easy. Nichkhun likes the place, and in a week he unpacks and prepares his portfolio to apply to art school.

 

Drawing was always ridiculously easy for him, skills honed when he was bored in long plane rides to wherever his parents decided to shuffle him of to, honed even more in the loud, vigorous streets of Seoul, where there was always something to draw

 

(in a box in the corner of his new closet are drawings of six other boys who didn’t know they were being drawn. The boys are happy, exhilarated, blessed with the look of luck, as if they’d never stop appreciating what they’d suddenly been given.

 

Then six became five so Nichkhun stopped drawing them, hid the sketchbook, hid his skills because why does it matter when the subject isn’t complete)

In University in Korea, he did some art, but treated it more as a way to relax, 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember what was supposed to happen here. I also don't know where I got the idea that Khun could draw (can he? I don't remember). This was probably supposed to be a slow burn reunion type fic thing.


	7. TAECJAY GREY'S ANATOMY AU.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS WAS THE FIC THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO TURN ME INTO A KPOP BNF!!!!!!!!!
> 
> I had all these grand plans about plotting and characterization lol. Then I got lazy.

When Taecyeon is 28, and Junsu goes to the army, and the rest of them are out of contract because JYPE finally files for bankruptcy, he goes back to America and takes the three steps of his medical licensing examinations.

 

It surprises everyone when he says he’s going to pursue a medical career, because everyone in Korea knew he was on the business track. But that’s all it was, a front to cover what he really was doing, which was putting himself on the path to becoming a doctor. Medical studies are stressful enough, and with the added weight of his career, he didn’t want the burden of fans finding out and stalking his lab classes to watch him tinker around with test tubes or poke dead bodies.

 

He graduates with a focus on surgery, from the most prestigious university and in the first percentile of his class, which surprises even him because he’d had to miss a lot of lectures and tests, especially in the beginning. He was always off at dance practice, or being chummy with Kang Ho Dong or accepting awards. His professors never minded, just told him to catch up and figure out what he missed from online notes and taped lectures, and that’s what he did, catch up and figure out everything else in the midst of all the madness that constantly surrounded him.

 

So the day he finally graduates is the day everyone finds out he was studying to be a doctor, and when the Dean of Medical Studies hands him his diploma, a million girls start screaming, accompanied by the sound of flashing cameras.

 

He sighs, _it’s too much to expect for my graduation to be secret anyway._

 

Not surprisingly, he scores in the 99th percentile of all exam takers that year, and has his picks of which hospitals to intern for. He’s pretty much settled on the east coast by then, the bustle of New York reminds him of Seoul and it would be nice to start the most hectic phase of his career in a place he’s comfortable in, but even better would be Boston, where there is the advantage of commuting to Beford on days-off to have home-cooked meals with his parents.

 

When he’s about to decide on a hospital in Boston, he receives a call from a medical  recruiter, who tells him that the famous Derek Shepherd, Head of Surgery at Seattle Grace Mercy West, pioneer of many new, now-famous surgical techniques wants to meet him.

 

He knows he shouldn’t, not with the practicality of staying in Boston trumping all his other choices, but he doesn’t want to pass up the chance of meeting Derek Shepherd. In any case, it’s a good chance to ask the guy questions about his career and maybe make new connections.

 

He arranges a dinner with Shepherd and goes into it with the mindset of not accepting anything. Except Shepherd is pretty persuasive, and lures him in with talk of the hospital’s medical program, tells him all about the new state of the art medical center, the great, interesting doctors he’ll work with and learn from, and even new digs for out of town interns. .

 

Shepherd asks him if he’s ever been to Seattle and Taecyeon looks away, says  “no, but I heard it’s beautiful.”

 

“It is,” says Shepherd, “I fell in love with my wife there. Are you seeing anyone, Mr. Ok?”

 

“No, sir,” Taecyeon answers, “My life’s always been too hectic for meeting anyone.”

 

“Well then, come to Seattle,” Shepherd says, “it’s a great place for falling in love.”

 

That night, against all the warnings his gut gives him, Taecyeon calls Shepherd, and accepts the job and signs the contract.

 

He starts packing the next day and gets on a plane to Seattle the next week. He is nervous and spends the whole trip reminding himself constantly that _Seattle is a big city and there are probably lots of hospitals._

 

 

He settles in pretty quickly. His apartment is nice, and it looks out on the bay where he can see the fishing boats and the docked ships in the marina. In the morning he gets up early and goes for a run, the salty breeze filling him in and waking him up for the long day ahead.

 

He likes his coworkers. They’re all stressed out and competing with each other most of the time (an atmosphere Taecyeon is used to) but they’re forced to make friends anyway because people would rather have trust in each other instead of enemies.

 

Taecyeon doesn’t view his job as some sort of competition to get to the top; he lived that way for 11 years in Korea and it tired him out. So he competes with himself, and is patient with everyone else. His superiors like that attitude, except for maybe Dr. Yang, one of the attending physicians who views him as a lazy gnat and isn’t shy about telling him so.

 

But Yang is one doctor, and everyone else likes having him on their team, from orthopedics with Dr. Torres, or her partner, Dr. Robbins, who heads pediatrics and likes him because he’s good with little kids. Dr. Sloan likes interrogating him about his nose job and gets him to talk to teenagers who want radical reconstruction (Taecyeon ends up telling them about a dear friend of his, called Junsu).

 

Dr. Bailey likes that he wants to stay on with general surgery and tries hard to keep him on that path instead of encouraging him to choose a focus like the fellow interns. The best one though, is the other Dr. Shepherd, or Dr. Grey, as she’s referred to, who tells him he reminds him of her when she was an intern, unsure of what she wanted like him now, and probably the only person in the entire program who refuses to kill for a cardiothoracic surgery, like she did.

 

“It’s admirable,” she tells him one day, “but sometimes I’m worried that you don’t want enough.” When she asks him why, he doesn’t really answer.

 

He doesn’t tell any of them, from the other interns to the attending physicians and certainly never to the department heads about his former life back in Korea (even if he suspects Shepherd knows). It’s not so much that it’s hard to talk about, but Taecyeon’s story is just one of million personal histories, each just as interesting as the others, so there’s no point.

 

They only find out a few months later, when a Korean patient starts screaming at the sight of him and despite Taecyeon’s pleas for her to calm down, “because you just had a big surgery, noona, please,” she doesn’t and instead brandishes 2PM’s fourth album in front of everyone, including Yang, and makes him sign it.

 

For three weeks everyone spends their lunch break watching old 2PM videos on youtube, and Taecyeon patiently explains everything, from Star King to the Gayos, to all the dramas he did, and why there are more than 50 videos of him dressed up as a woman. He even ends up discussing skinship with Torres and Robbins.

 

Nothing amuses Grey more than the music videos, and when she asks him why there are seven people in the first video and then suddenly only six in the next few, she look at Taecyeon’s face, and doesn’t ask him again.

 

 

He spends his days mostly in the hospital and his apartment, and on his days off likes walking around the city, and makes plans to someday go hiking. He talks to his parents on the weekend, promises Jihyen he’ll be there for the wedding, and when he is feeling brave and tipsy, calls Seoul.

 

He doesn’t really keep in touch with anyone anymore, only Nichkhun and Nichkhun lives back in California. When they talk, they make promises to see each other sometimes “when we have time,” and it’s always sort of unspoken between them that Taecyeon will make the trip down to California, because bringing Nichkhun to Seattle is like asking for something they both can’t handle yet.

 

In Korea, the only one he keeps in close contact with is Seulong, who tells him about his latest drama, and all the gossip in the industry.

 

He talks to Yoona sometimes, who is pregnant and badgers him about coming to see her when the baby is born. Taecyeon makes promises he knows he can’t keep before she snorts down the phone and says, “maybe I’ll go to your hospital and give birth there, because I’ll see you _and_ have a green-card ticket in my son!” they laugh, and it’s sweet and easy but Taecyeon is glad he didn’t fall in love with her like everyone said he should.

 

Seulong knows Taecyeon won’t ask, so he starts talking about the old band, about Wooyoung’s latest talk show, and Junho’s new idol group and Chansung’s latest scandal and “Junsu’s latest nose, Taecyeon-ah, maybe he needs to go to your hospital and get it checked out.”

 

Just before the call ends, Seulong asks, (carefully, like always) “Have you seen him?” and Taecyeon will make an excuse about an urgent surgery he has to get to, even when he is in bed at two in the morning.

 

 

There is no danger of ever seeing _him_ , until one day _he_ is rolled out of an ambulance, unconscious.

 

“Jaybum Park, 30 years old,” says the first responder, “from Edmonds. Car crash, just outside on the highway to Tacoma. Bruising on the forehead, but it’s the heart that’s weak. Recommended for immediate defibrillation.”

 

Taecyeon stares at the person on the stretcher being rolled past him, the pale face marred by a bruised forehead and doesn’t react because suddenly it feels like he’s in the middle of an out of body experience. It only takes Dr. Grey’s frantic shouting before he snaps back to action and follows the stretcher to the trauma room.

 

And then his day gets much better, when on the way to the ER, Jehan (who he didn’t even see come out of the ambulance) spots him and gives him a punch to the face.

 

 Jehan is dragged out by security and Taecyeon’s face is fine, if a little sensitive but the trauma team is working on Jay who still hasn’t woken up. Almost mechanically he starts defibrillation, hands shaking, voice whispering, willing Jay to wake up. After five pumps, Grey is ready to call TOD but Taecyeon pumps his chest twice more, at the risk of being fired.

 

At the seventh pump, Jay finally opens his eyes, and stares at Taecyeon with a look of confusion before he proceeds to pass out. But he’s stable, and alive and breathing on his own and Taecyeon suddenly needs a bottle of soju to calm his nerves.

 

 

“Your forehead.”

 

“Huh?” Taecyeon looks up at Dr. Grey, uncertainty lacing his features.

 

“The guy that punched you, is your face fine?” she asks concernedly, before reaching out to hold his head in place. “He hit you in the exact same spot of the patient’s forehead. Do you know them?”

Taecyeon thinks of maybe lying, and doesn’t really want to tell his superior all the messed up things in his life that involved Jay, but Grey is nothing but intuitive, having scoped out hidden meanings in almost everything in her life.

 

“I – yeah, I knew them,” he says, swallowing and unconsciously blurting out the past tense, “From way back.”

 

“I have to talk to his family,” she says, “would you like to come with me?”

 

Taecyeon wants to refuse, wants, _needs_ a soju bottle and a phone call to Seulong, but the look Grey gives him means he needs to say yes because refusal would be giving up participation in any future surgery.

 

“Ok,” he answers, “yeah.”

 

 

The first person he sees in the waiting area is Jehan, wearing down the carpet as he paces front and back. He sees Taecyeon too, and the swing of his arm most likely means Taecyeon will end up with broken nose before the day is over, before Mrs. Park reaches out to grab it.

 

Mrs. Park looks older, finer lines on her features and grey hair. She stares at Taecyeon with sad eyes, and it’s all Taecyeon can do before he runs back and locks himself in one of the closets. Jehan looks like the father, but Jay is the one who looks like Mrs. Park, so much so that Taecyeon can’t really stare at her for too long.

 

“Mrs. Park? I’m Meredith Grey, and I’ll be in charge of handling your son,” she says, “and this is “Taecyeon Ok, one of our medical interns, who’ll be assisting me.”

 

“We _know_ who he is,” Jehan answers nastily, “Since when did he become a doctor?”

 

“ _Jehan_.”

                              

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am actually pretty proud of this. I still like re-reading it sometimes.


	8. wg - hyerim gen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wonderful heroic woo hyerim my bb gurl.

Hyerim isn’t stupid.

 

She knows no one wants her there. The girls tolerate her, it’s just the matter of actually including her in conversations that need to happen next. Sohee smiles at her, and Sunye is encouraging, except she can tell they still wish Sunmi was there instead.

 

It’s the same with stylists: they give her sizes that fit Sunmi, or even worse Sunmi’s old clothes that she didn’t take with her. When she goes into the studio to record Sunmi’s parts, it sounds all wrong to her, and to everyone else it sounds like an everlasting ache.

 

No one is quite sure what to do with her, and even she isn’t sure herself. She’s awkward and bumbling and her growing pains are still growing, still painful. She can’t smile right, she’s too chubby and she doesn’t know how to dress herself. She doesn’t know that when a photographer goes to your school to take pictures of you as school girl, you shouldn’t _look_ like a school girl, you’re supposed to be an idol dressed like a school girl, all blow-dried hair and not a spot of imperfection on your face, teeth gleaming and intangible poise.

 

Yubin tells her it will get better, like it did for all of them, but Lim still feels so alone, and wants someone to be imperfect with. The other girls had each other during their awkwardness, but for Lim it’s magnified and everyone is a little bit more vicious.

 

On the tour bus with Oneday, she sits to the side, reading a book. Everyone has someone to talk to, because everyone knows someone except for her. They all laugh and talk boisterously, except she knows something is missing and the best thing about always being ignored is that she knows when they avoid certain subjects, people whose names start with “S” or “J”

 

“Hi,” she looks to her right, and it’s Jinwoon, who’s the closest to her in age, and really, the only one who’s bothered to talk to her on the entire trip.

 

She smiles at him, and it feels easy, to smile and maybe now that someone’s talking to her, maybe it _will_ get better.


	9. taecjay - car crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angsty angst angst.

“A car crash,” Jihyen’s voice shakes on the phone, “the road was icy and the driver lost control.”

 

It’s always the same story, in every car crash that has happened to a Korean idol, but because this is the first time Jay really, actually knows someone involved, he can feel a hands squeezing his lungs, so tight he can’t breathe.

 

“We’re leaving, for the airport in an hour,” she continues, “will you come to Korea?”

 

When it comes Taecyeon, Jay is never able to refuse.

 

 

Jay never thought he’d ever be back in Korea. It’s been three years since then, people have grown up and moved on. He still gets letters and gifts on his birthday but each year they get smaller. Fans don’t turn up at his bboy battles screaming bloody murder, nor do they actively look for him anymore.

 

Sometimes he misses all of it, and sometimes he doesn’t, but most of all he is happy that he is able to move on, to tuck that part of his life away only to be looked at when he wants to, now that it isn’t constantly shoved up his face.

 

So it doesn’t surprise him that when he lands in Seoul, no screaming horde awaits him in the airport, armed with flashing cameras and the impulse to grab him and tear him to pieces. What surprises him though is Minjae, who he hasn’t seen in three years (just like he hasn’t seen any of them), standing in front of a van, ashen face and a broken voice, hands that shake when they take his bag from him.

 

“Jihyen told me to get you,” he says quietly.

 

“Ok,” Jay nods. “Ok.”

 

 

Jay has forgotten how _tiny_ he feels in Seoul, and the feeling is magnified in the hospital, white halls and the sparse, sterile smell that is the constant the world over.

 

He feels smaller now, staring at Taecyeon, swathed in bandages and a breathing apparatus pumping air to him. He hasn’t woken up yet, the doctor says the prognosis is bleak but Taecyeon’s parents refuse to give up, so Jay won’t too.

 

Other than the injuries Taecyeon looks different, older now, a little gaunt, a fast-paced life taking it’s toll on him. Jay wouldn’t have recognized him anymore if they bumped into each other in the middle of a street somewhere, and it’s likewise the same with Taecyeon too.

 

They’re different, older but still, not wiser than they were three years ago.

 

 

The doctor tells them to talk to Taecyeon about shared memories, because maybe he might be listening and to hear the stories might encourage him to wake up.

 

So Jay talks, and says many things, _Do you remember when we first met and I found you so annoying because you fit in so easily and I couldn’t, do you remember when we decided to become friends? That time we both snuck out during trainee days and it was the best day of our lives? And do you remember debut and how nervous you were but I told you, you will be amazing and you were? Our first music show win, our first cf our first paycheck, our first everything?”_

_Do you remember the night I left and I promised I’d come back? It took me three years, but I’m back now._

 

Taceyeon wakes up the next day.

 

When Jay hears from Jihyen he packs his things in the small motel he’s staying in, and boards a flight to Seattle.

 

No one tells Taecyeon anything, and he’s still too tired to discern the tight smile on his mother’s face, or notice how Minjae looks away when he asks about who else visited him in the hospital.

 

As far as Taecyeon is concerned, Jay never came back. But that’s okay because he can wait for the promise to come true.

 

He never stops waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might be finished.


	10. 2pm - angsty angst angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stream of consciousness i guess?

**junho.**

 

junho thinks, _maybe now is my time._

 

when jay leaves, junho is angry. not at the netizens, like taecyeon is, or quietly raging at jype like nichkhun, but at jay. junho has never lived anywhere else but in korea, and so has never been homesick, or in need of his mother’s cooking, or in need of hearing a language he is comfortable in (because the very idea of being uncomfortable in korean is unfathomable to him). this place is perfect, he thinks, why would you long for america with wars and fat people and figure skaters who can’t skate as well as kim yuna?, but he never asks any of this because for all jay’s pleading and shaking and please junho, please look at me junho never looks, turns his back, walks out the door and takes a long walk around the block, hoping to avoid the nosy eyes of everyone else. when he comes back, jay is gone, half the room is empty and taecyeon looks at him with disgust, says at least junsu said goodbye, and junho, unable to stop himself, says why don’t you follow him then, you yank? the words sound disgusting and vile as they fall from his lips and taecyeon punches him before chansung drags him away. junho is thankful he has no schedule in the following days, but then he remembers, of course you don’t, because you’re one of the expendable ones and all you’re good for is looking like rain.

 

his resentment never goes away, especially when he finds out that they’re not doing varieties out of respect, and junho remembers thinking, why would should i respect him when he didn’t respect my country but taecyeon gives him a snarl like he knows what he’s thinking and says . scarily, taecyeon does know, which worries junho because that’s the sign of a leader, when you know what your members feel and junho wants to be leader, feels that he deserves it because he has no bones in his closet except for maybe his hate. hate that overflows when taecyeon rips his shirt off and junho is angry, wants his time, but knows he’ll probably never get it.

 

but a few months later, after they win the mama awards, and after they are told in the meeting that jaebum did something. he steps up on stage in inkigayo in place of taecyeon when taecyeon goes to america and junho thinks finally, finally, finally.

 

then taecyeon comes back and things go back to the way they were before and he realizes what he threw away for his ambition and he is sick to his stomach and ashamed of himself and wishes he could talk to someone but he realizes the one person who would’ve listened he allowed to walk away from him without saying goodbye.

 

 

**< b>wooyoung.</b>**

wooyoung cries for days after jay leaves.

 

it isn’t like taecyeon, who doesn’t cry but is angry and then cries but has to stop before he goes out on a music show and sings about candy ears. wooyoung cries, never ending and chokes on his own tears and can go for minutes of not breathing. jay was his first friend, the one who encouraged him, the one who spoon-fed him ice cream when jin-young-hyung got angry when he couldn’t hit his notes. there is an element of hero-worship there, because wooyoung was baby-faced and awkward and not at all assured of himself and his place in the band but jay. jay was. wooyoung remembers asking, _hyung, aren’t you homesick? don’t you want to give up?_ jay just smiled at him, answered, _wooyoung if I gave up what would happen to you?_

 

and now jay hasn’t given up but he’s gone so wooyoung doesn’t really know what will happen. the dorm is quiet, the cleaning ladies leave them candies on their beds (on the couch for wooyoung and chansung) to make them smile and for weeks after they get all the best food. wooyoung feels drained and suffocated like maybe there’s a thick blanket of ash that covers him and everything around him. none of them are taking this well, khun has retreated to silence and chansung stares blankly at everything and junsu and junho are swept by their remorse. and taecyeon. taecyeon is angry, so angry, possibly even angrier now that junsu and junho have seen the error of their ways, like that could’ve made any difference.

 

they’re changing, all changing so quickly and they grew up so fast. wooyoung wishes he could stop time or maybe go back in time and then stop it. he doesn’t know what time he wants, maybe during _again & again_ when they were happy so happy or maybe during _wild bunny_. anything but now anything but september.

 

then it becomes october then november then december then a new year. they’re so hopeful all of them, wooyoung breathes easier and nichkhun is back to himself and chansung can laugh boisterously  and junsu and junho have forgiven themselves and they laugh when they talk to jay on the phone. taecyeon isn’t so angry now, maybe just sad, and wooyoung can tell whenever it hits him because his eyes speak the most of all his loneliness. but wooyoung thinks _it will all be okay, jay will be back and he’ll patch us up and it will be like nothing ever happened in the first place._

 

and then a few days later they pile in for a meeting with jinyoung-hyung and jungwook-sunbae and they are told things and it feels like september again and wooyoung feels like a fool for ever hoping for anything else.

 

this time he gives up and watches everything change.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i posted the junho part in a fic meme, people liked it, it was supposed to continue on to the other members.


	11. taecjay - they're grandpas in this one?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so they're both old with grand kids lol.

When it isn’t too cold, little Emily Park likes to accompany her grandfather on his afternoon walks to the park.

Emily is six years old, chubby cheeked and forever smiling, her hair done up in pigtails by her grandfather. She talks to him, and never really stops talking except to take a breath and start all over again. Her grandfather is endlessly amused by her and lets her talk on and on, about school and her new friend and her Korean lessons.

When she is feeling mischievous she likes to talk to him with the new Korean she learns and he answers back with what he can remember. It isn’t much and she notices the sad look in his eyes, so she stops it and brings something else up, usually her dance lessons, and there is nothing he likes more than to teach her how to attempt a pirouette.

And then they end up sitting on one of the park benches, huddled together and drinking hot milk and sharing a pretzel from one of the vendors. There is nothing more that makes Emily proud than when the town folk stop and chat with her grandfather, because to her he is a hero and it’s nice that everyone in the town feels that way.

But this day is different because there’s people sitting on their bench. It’s another old man, with what seems to be his grandson. Emily glares at them and the little boy notices and runs up to them excitedly.

“Oh it’s someone my age!” he yells excitedly.

Emily stares. “You and your grandpa are sitting on my bench,” she spits out, “and I don’t like it.”

“Hey!” the little boy answers, “don’t talk to my harabujee that way, he deserves more respect, you know.”

“Emily,” her grandfather says, “I taught you your manners, right?” he looks at the boy’s own grandfather, and smiles, even if he can’t really see clearly. His eyes are failing.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, and then brightens, “hey, what’s your name?”

“Joey,” the boy answers. “Or Joseph. Joseph Ok.”

Emily’s grandfather makes a strangled sound and she turns to look at him worriedly, before Joseph’s grandfather catches her attention. He’s coming towards them and Emily thinks, wow, he’s even more handsome than my grandpa.


	12. taecjay - taec spontaneously decides to buy a ticket to seattle.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk grand romantic gesture?

One day, Taecyeon decides to buy a ticket to Seattle.

It’s the time of the year when he has to go to America anyway, to keep his green card. But he usually goes to Boston, so the company just lets him do the bookings himself and they take care of the fees.

But he reserves a ticket for Seattle and in the next two days waits for Jungwook-hyung to call and reprimand him but there’s no call so he starts packing and makes sure he brings nice clothes so he doesn’t look like a fashion terrorist.

And then he gets to the airport, and there are no words from Minjae-hyung or any of the boys that let on that know what he’s up to, so he shrugs and gets on the plane anyway.

It doesn’t hit him until a few hours in that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

 

It’s been five months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea how this was supposed to end.


	13. taecjay - taec being dumb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written during that time taec was exhausting himself and crying on stage and stuff.

Taecyeon has always had a misguided sense of honor.

 

When he was in kindergarten, in Korea, the pretty girl in pigtails he has a crush on accidentally trips on a classmate’s bag. Taecyeon retaliates by tripping the owner every time they see each other.

 

When he moved to America, he and his sister can’t speak English. It is easier for him to adapt, because it’s always easier for boys. Harder for girls and within the end of the month everyone is abuzz about that new foreign student who eats her pizza in the bathroom and wails loudly in the language where she comes from. Taecyeon gets back at all of them by slipping kimchi in their lockers.

 

When Jay left for America the first time Taecyeon was so angry he snapps at anyone who said a bad thing about Jay. This ensures that for an entire month, Junsu and Junho are dead to him.

 

And then Jay isn’t coming back and Taecyeon loses his cool in the press conference and he really has no more honor to be misguided about, until he decides _I will force all the attention on me so when mistakes are made, the rest of the band will be relatively unscathed._

It’s a stupid philosophy but really, he couldn’t care less anymore.

 

 

In an entire month he crams in three months worth of solid work. There’s hosting for _Inkigayo_ , music shows, varieties, interviews, photoshoots, airplane rides, CF shootings, the tail end of _Family Outing_ and finally, the most important, _Cinderella’s Sister._

By the end of that month he is so exhausted but he forces himself anyway, pushes himself harder and harder until he can barely breathe. Everyone, from his band members to the cast members to his mother calls in a panic, begging him to take a rest.

 

When he’s asleep, no one bothers him anymore.

 

 

After a particularly exciting _Inkigayo_ , he faints.

 

They’ve just won the award, and he stays with the band to do the encore. He’s happy, but sluggish and willing himself to keep awake. The moment the live cameras are off, he stumbles into Seulong and falls over.

 

The fans see everything, of course. Seulong picks him up and he can kind of hear the roaring, concerned fans (the fact that he still has them makes him as happy as he can be while passed out), the outraged members, and finally, the quiet in the car.

 

If he wasn’t knocked out, he’d take a peek of the view outside the window. Seoul whipping by, both majestic and terrifying and he bemoans he never has time to see the outside world anyway.

 

Before he falls asleep, he thinks, _Shit, my mom will kill me._

 

Turns out, it’s Jay, not his mother on the phone. Jay, terrified and angry, threatening to fly back, JYPE be dammed, to force Taec to drop back and prioritize.

 

In the middle of the lecture he interrupts, and whispers, “Jay, if only you know how terrified I am.”

 

“Terrified of what?” Jay answers, still annoyed.

 

“Of never measuring up to you,” Taec replies, “tell me it gets easier.”

 

“You stupid, _stupid_ boy,” says Jay. “So stupid.”


	14. taecjay - idk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here have moar angst.

Three months and Taecyeon has become extraordinarily good at convincing himself that everything is okay.

 

He gets up in the morning, earlier than everyone else and goes online. He reads what they say about him, and what he did, and how karma will bite him someday. He writes emails to his mother and his sister and to his best friends. He even writes one for Jay and reasons _yeah well maybe Jay can’t understand email anyway_ so that email never gets sent, relegated to a folder named “unsent” among all the other unsent emails for the same person.

 

He has also become good at delusion.

 

He gets on with his day. If it’s a weekday, it’s filming for the drama. On the set he’s fine, he can disappear into his character and when he isn’t required to be on camera, he hangs around, watches Geun-Young noona film her scenes and then chats with the coordis and catering staff.

 

On set no one treats him as 2PM Taecyeon, he’s Ok Taecyeon, rookie actor so he isn’t burdened by all of his mistakes, the feeling of distortion creeping up his bones when he isn’t looking.

 

Sometimes though, when he’s Jung Woo and Geun-Young noona is Eun Jo and he’s loving her with so much intensity, his heart hurts and he can feel himself choking.

 

 _How can you be so devoted to one person your whole life,_ he asks himself one day, and then he remembers, _Well, you were like that, once._

 

 

It’s always worse when he comes back to being 2PM Taecyeon. It’s hard to look at anyone straight in the eye anymore, like maybe if they really looked at each other, all the walls they built will crumble and they’ll be forced to tell the truth.

 

They sing, they dance, they (try) to make people laugh, he hosts with Wooyoung or maybe smiles with Nichkhun in a CF and really, nothing is ever the same anymore.

 

When he goes to sleep he convinces himself _tomorrow it will be better_ , that maybe it won’t hurt as much anymore and when he wakes up the next day it never is.


	15. dbsk - changmin travels all over the world to ~find himself~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i photoshsopped a picture of changmin riding an alpaca once lol.

On the day he finally hears the decision of disbandment, Changmin packs a suitcase and walks out of the apartment.

 

It takes him close to five years before he ever steps foot back in Korea.

 

 

He’s always wanted to go to South America, so he randomly decides on Peru. In the first few days, he is this awkward, tall man who can’t seem to get a hold of himself, walking around like his body parts will suddenly separate from him.

 

He stays in a nice, small hotel near the city centre of Lima, takes pictures, writes a post card to his mother telling her not to worry. He checks the internet: Korea is reeling from the final, sad end of Dong Bang Shin Ki but now they’re more preoccupied about where the hell Shim Changmin is.

 

He hasn’t called, says Yunho, ever leader-like in his ways, the agency, his parents, sisters…no one knows where he is.

 

The next day, he takes a train up North and walks among the ruins of the Machu Picchu. He realizes, if this place has survived for centures, then I will too.

 

He sees an alpaca for the first time and feels the strange urge to ride it. It’s out of the question because he’s too tall, but he settles for feeding them, and then one of the groomsmen teaches him how to shave one.

 

No one knows who he is, and he thinks, this is nice.

 

 

He visits a few more countries in South America, before he decides to hop to another continent. The next port of call is Ireland. Ireland is green and loud with drunk people who can (possibly) out drink Jaejoong.

 

He boards with a family of three, a single mother and her ten and eight year old daughters who stare at him like he’s some entity they could’ve never dreamed up. In the afternoon he teaches them words like umma, and annyeong and chingu, and makes the family some Korean food sometimes.

 

The mother asks him one day, what are you running away from, and he says, I’m not running away, I’m just moving on.

 

A few days later, she tells him that the family is going on a week’s trip to Paris and if he wants to come, he can. He thanks her, but refuses, I don’t really like Paris.

 

 

He travels around for a few more years before he decides to go to Morocco. There are ruins and bustling souks and windy desserts to see, camels to ride and food to taste.

 

The wind is dusty and painful to the eyes but Changmin likes it. He’s tanner now,  dressed like a traveler in shorts and a backpack, most of the things in his suitcase sent back to his mother. He’s even gained more weight.

 

Sometimes he will pass by a group of Korean tourists. He used to keep his head down, but that only brought on more suspicion (who else is that tall with those big ears?) but now he smiles at them easily, and if a Dong Bang Shin Ki fan is among the lot, he’ll refuse a picture or an autograph but welcome a chat.

 

They tell him everything about what’s happened since then. The Trio is working in Japan, successful but not as successful as what Matsura hoped. Changmin tries to stop the smile spreading on his face, but the fans notice, yell out “Oppa!” and swat at his shoulder and he laughs. The fans are almost always amazed when he laughs with them, because they never thought it would be possible to laugh with Changmin.

 

Yunho disappears from the public eye, finished his school and did his army duty, before SME offered him a cushy position in the hierarchy of the company. He’s always had an eye for business, Yunho, and everyone sees the influence of his decisions.

 

Changmin goes to an internet café one day and watches the latest rare Yunho interview, and he says, I want to give everyone the success we had, but not the aches. I don’t want any more groups to be separated, with one of them in some far-flung place, hopefully alive. Changmin needs to do his military service soon.

 

It startles him, when he remembers, when he realizes he’s been away for close to five years and soon he’ll be 28 and needing to complete his military requirement.

 

He’s been to so many places, Peru and Argentina and Ireland and Russia and Finland and South Africa and Egypt, and lived a hard and long but amazing life in those places.

 

Korea is his next adventure.

 

He buys a ticket and flies home, a smile on his face.


	16. henwook - henry lau u are the worst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so henry is being all unsure and canadian about all these korean boys who don't understand the concept of personal space. ryeowook genuinely likes him tho but henry doesn't get it and is kind of an ass.

Henry has this thing about being suffocated.

 

He can handle affection, hugs he can take as long as they last for up to only five seconds, and touching is fine as long as no meaningful looks are exchanged.

 

He doesn’t know how or why this started, only that at the age of ten, all of a sudden he started shying away from his mother every time she decided to hold his hand in public.

 

Fresh after his first performance in Korea, when 13 boys try and snuggle him all at the same time to show their sympathies, he thinks, _wow, I’m so fucked._

 

 

It gets slightly better after that, especially when he gets put in the subgroup. People out of the band still hate his guts but at least the number members who try and comfort him have decreased to six.

 

The longer they promote in China, the more the others realize that maybe Henry isn’t so okay with the idea of physical affection. He’s fine in TV shows, because he knows it’s what people want, but he doesn’t look for it outside the studio.

 

Han Geng tells the rest of the band, “Don’t over do it, I heard that where he comes from you don’t really do those things unless you’re actually dating.”

 

So one by one, the boys drop it. They all talk and laugh and wrestle together like raucous little boys, but that’s it, they know it’s all a bit of roughhousing.

 

Except for Ryeowook.

 

 

Ryeowook is all smiles and pleasant laughter that threaten to escape between his thin fingers as he holds them to his mouth (another thing that confuses Henry about Korea, _why do they all cover their mouths when they laugh?_ ).

 

It’s like everyone has a special reservoir of love for Ryeowook, Henry thinks to himself. When he asks Donghae how come, and why Kyuhyun doesn’t get that love when it’s him who almost died a few months earlier, Donghae rolls his eyes and tells him it’s because “Kyuhyun will just laugh at you.”

 

Ryeowook on the other hand is thankful for every bit of affection he gets when he cooks them food or guides them through a hard pitch.

 

Henry starts to notice that for all the love they give Ryeowook, it’s like all that love’s outlet is for him.

 

Ryeowook likes to sit and stare when Henry practices the violin, eyes widening in appreciation when a particular swell of the music gets to him. He claps in the end and tries to express his appreciation in musically appropriate terms even if Henry knows there is nothing that Ryeowook understands about the violin.

 

He makes Henry the best food, always taking care that the best, juciest, part of the meat it his, or makes sure that he gets the most rice. Even Han Geng doesn’t get that treatment, and when Kyuhyun complains one night, a rare glare passes across Ryeowook’s face and Kyuhyun drops the subject.

 

Henry doesn’t complain, he likes Ryeowook enough like he likes the rest of the band. Sure, he’s different from the rest of his friends back home but everyone in Korea is, anyway so it doesn’t really matter, as long as the food stays good.

 

Ryeowook also steps up the fan service.

 

Henry doesn’t notice it at first, because it’s fan service and he’s sort of gotten used to it. He even initiates it sometimes, and more often than not to Ryeowook because they’re always next to each other anyway.

 

The hugs are longer, and the touches run up his arm agonizingly slow. Ryeowook does it spontaneously, a hug from the back or a brush of hands and he likes to look at him with some sort of shyness before it flashes away and it’s just same old Ryeong-hyung smiling at Henry.

 

Sometimes, Henry feels his breath catch up his throat when he catches Ryeowook doing that and he starts thinking if the goose bumps, his wild eyes and sweaty palms are the effect of his clausterphobia or something else entirely.

 

Either way he doesn’t really like it, and after letting it go for a few weeks he tells Ryeowook point blank to stop it.

 

That night he twists and turns around his bed and wonders if maybe he should’ve let Ryeowook know about his clausterphobia being the reason for his reluctance to touch.

 

 

Things change soon enough.

 

The fan service is still there because it can’t go away completely, but it’s colder, more calculated than it ever was and when Henry rids himself of his guilt and finds the guts to look up at Ryeowook’s face, it’s impressively closed off, eyes quiet and saying nothing.

 

Even the food gets worst. Henry wants to complain after the fourth straight meal of kimchi and rice but knows he probably should be thankful he’s even getting anything at all. When Kyuhyun, pitying him, tries to intercede on his behalf, a not-so-rare-glare crosses across Ryeowook face and Kyuhyun shuts up.

 

He loses the right to call him Ryeong-hyung too, and from Me to Super Girl promotions, they’re both strangers in the same apartment. Henry is ignored so much he starts being thankful for the kimchi and rice as the only sort of acknowledgement from Ryeowook to him.

 

The day Ryeowook leaves for Canada in May, nine members give him goodbye wishes and hugs and handshakes. The tenth, Eunhyuk tells him, is downstairs in the kitchen, banging the pots and pans utensils together in his displesure.

 

“Nah,” Henry tries to smile, “He’s just celebrating the fact that he doesn’t have to make kimchi and rice anymore.”


	17. dbsk - changmin studies in new york.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so pre-kyhd comeback, there was a rumor that someone on kpsm2 probably made up about changmin wanting to study abroad lol.

New York is lovely in the fall.

 

Changmin walks to class, throat bundled up in a thick scarf, a cup of coffee in one hand and Anna Karenina in the other. Last night he told Minho that he would be the Vronsky to someone’s Anna someday and Minho blinked at him on the computer before Changmin laughed and sipped the remains of the ramyun on his cup.

 

It’s cold, but not so much that it’s horrible. It’s Changmin’s perfect kind of cold, where he doesn’t shiver but when he breathes he can see the puffs of air around him. Around him people go about their ways, businessmen and students and bratty children being dragged to school by impatient nannies.

 

Sometimes a Korean tourist will recognize him and Changmin will smile easily, like he never would have back in Korea. He smiles like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders, like all he has to worry about is Tolstoy and Proust and talking to the TA of his French class.

 

Changmin takes French. The words sound funny in his ears, his “-eux” and “-aites” feel like imposters to his mouth but there’s something wonderful about being able to take a language he never would’ve considered before.

 

When he gets to the building, he finishes his coffee, and waits in line for the students to fall in, and stretching his arms, he inhales the new day and watches with wide eyes at the traffic just off the block.

 

He slips his bookmark off and starts to read to bide his time.

 

Levin was insufferably bored with the ladies that evening…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone on the fic meme told me this sucked and that i should stop trying to turn changmin into a hipster lol.


	18. taecjay - jay is mtf and the new snsd member

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for kpsm2. i think someone might have shopped jay's face into an snsd member with taec (prob yoona).

The next time Taec sees Jay, he’s dressed in white shorts, a pink jacket, with his newly long hair in pigtails. He also has _boobs_.

 

He and Wooyoung are doing their Inkigayo duties, interviewing Girls Generation for their comeback and simultaneously introducing the new Soshi member to the public.

 

Her name is Park Jaeyeon, and she’s _really_ pretty, with big eyes that stare flirtatiously at Taec, and a smile that shows off gleaming white teeth.

 

And she’s really talented too, singing in unison to _Oh!_ with the rest of the girls, and dancing, even better than Hyoyeon.

 

 _Oppa oppa I’ll be I’ll be down down down_ , she sings, staring at Taec, grinning naughtily as she bends over and winks at him.

 

On the car ride home, Wooyoung asks him if he thought anything was weird with the new member. “It’s like, she was so _familiar_ ,” he says, “like we’ve met before."

 

Taec looks out the window and mutters, “you have no idea.”

 


	19. taec/onew (onion?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk.

Jinki falls for Taecyeon not during _Idol Army_ or any of the times they happen to be promoting together, or in an awards show.

 

It’s in November, when 2PM accepts their award at the MAMA awards. SHINee aren’t there, but they have a rare night off, so they watch it anway.

 

Taecyeon is tall and handsome, all bravura and energy in his performances but this time he’s quiet, his face closed off, except for his eyes. They’re wide and gleaming with tears that he won’t let out, due to his sheer control.

 

Jinki knows 2PM have a lot of things to be sad for, because even if they’re winning awards here and there, there is always something missing, a space no one tries to notice even if everyone can see.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ?????


	20. ryeowook/hyungshik - kyuhyun being a meddler.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahhh i loved ryeowook's obsession with hyungshik lol. it was cute. also kpsm2 theorized that he was probably really mad at henry for getting amber pregnant lmao so he was adoring hyungshik and only giving henry shitty dinners.

Kyuhyun is not jealous.

 

Ok, so maybe he is. Just a little bit. But it isn’t jealousy because he was in love with Ryeowook, ew. No. It’s the kind of jealousy that comes when you realize someone who gave you his undivided attention suddenly has other people to give attention to.

 

And, well, Kyuhyun isn’t stupid. He’d known lots of things about Ryeowook before Ryeowook even told him, so he knew all the cooking, and the cleaning, and the attention-giving was just an outlet for Ryeowook before he found someone he really, really wanted to give that attention to. So, sooner or later, this was going to end.

 

He just didn’t expect it to end so soon, though.

 

 

“Why Hyungshik?” asks Kyuhyun bitterly, “some gnat from ZE:A.” He spits out ZE:A like it’s venom, weak, irrelevant, irritating venom that isn’t worth his time. “Why couldn’t he fall for someone relevant, a 2PM member, maybe,” he pauses, “Nichkhun. Nichkhun is an angel and popular, and not Korean, so if this whole thing blows up in their faces, he can take Ryeowook and they can go live in Bangkok.”

 

Changmin is dying with laughter on the other line. “Kyuhyunie,” he teases, “don’t tell me you’re bitter because you liked it and didn’t put a ring on it.”

 

“No,” Kyuhyun snaps, “that’s Henry. I’m just mad because he can do so much better.”

 

And I like girls,, he mentally adds. And maybe sometimes, tall, Chinese boys with big noses who like expensive purses. And earthquakes..

 

“So your solution is Nichkhun?” Changmin snorts, “What?”

 

“I was being facetious,” Kyuhyun says, “besides, Taecyeon is more his type, he said so when he made me watch Cinderella’s Sister with him.”

 

 

 

This is the story of how Ryeowook told Kyuhyun he maybe, really, kind of, liked penises more than vaginas.

 

They were drunk. Because the greatest Ryeowook and Kyuhyun stories happen when one of them, or even better, both, have had way too much soju.

 

”Kyuhyunie-ah,” Ryeowook says, dazedly, “I like China.”

 

Kyuhyun likes China too. He won’t ever tell anyone, but Zhou Mi smiles really, really brightly, even in the flashing lights of this piteous noraebang in Beijing they stumbled into. But it had cheap drinks, so that was ok.

“And Chinese food.”

 

Kyuhyun thinks Chinese food is delicious too. Even when Zhou Mi burns the noodles, or there’s too much salt in the dish, or the century egg is kind of disgusting.

 

“And Han Geng Gege is quite handsome, don’t you think?”

 

Well. That was new. Not the liking guys part, because Kyuhyun always kind of knew, and was always kind of waiting for Ryeowook to tell him. But the settling for Geng part, well, that was kind of weird.

 

“He isn’t really, Ryeowook,” Kyuhyun manages to say, “his hairline is receding and he can’t sing.”

 

Really. Not the best thing he could’ve said in the moment.

 

Ryeowook’s mouth puckers, and his eyes narrow into even tinier slits. Kyuhyun doesn’t even know why he bothers, because no one can take an angry Ryeowook seriously.

 

“You. Are so awful,” he’s getting flustered now, “I don’t even know why I bothered, why I thought telling you would be a good idea, I thought we were friends Kyuhyun, and then now you go on and act like this, and—“

 

“I didn’t say liking him was bad,” Kyuhyun quickly interrupts. “Just.”

 

Ryeowook is full-on glaring at him now.

 

“I mean, I totally support whatever lifestyle you want to live,” and this is true, Kyuhyun knows with his whole heart that he’d want Ryeowook to be happy and content, “but it would be nicer if the person you lived that lifestyle with could hold on to his hair and at least carry a tune.”

 

Ryeowook still looks kind of mad, but at least his eyes aren’t so tiny anymore. Kyuhyun notes with satisfaction that he doesn’t look like he wants to murder him anymore.

 

“He isn’t that bad-looking,” Ryeowook muses, looking over fondly at Geng murdering a song on the microphone, “and you don’t look so hot yourself.”

 

This is the year 2008, aka Kyuhyun’s serial murderer phase. So yeah, maybe he doesn’t really have room to talk. But Ryeowook’s expression has changed, and he has his happy, blessed out, drunk face on.

 

It’s the best kind of Ryeowook, even better than cooking Ryeowook, just slightly less awesome than singing Ryeowook.

 

“What about Henry then?”

“WHAT.”

 

So, that was that, and Ryeowook moved on from Geng to Henry, started staring at him lovingly (and also a little creepily), and began preparing masses of food for him, when it wasn’t even mealtimes.

 

And Kyuhyun (still under the spell of tall Chinese boys with a preference for tiny, annoying dogs) was struck with a sense of his own, amazing superiority in disaster averting and Ryeowook-boy coaching.

 

So he decides he’s in charge of Ryeowook’s love life.

 

 

He has a very thorough list of requirements:

 

  1. No one in Super Junior.
  2. But Super Junior-M is ok, provided it isn’t any of the original Super Junior members, which leaves Zhou Mi and Henry, and Zhou Mi is off-limits, ok, so, Henry it is.
  3. Must know how to sing.
  4. Be handsome.
  5. Relevant.
  6. Instruments are a plus.
  7. No one in SME.
  8. Speak another language other than Korean.
  9. Nice skin.
  10. Tall.
  11. Appreciates food.
  12. Etc.



 

It goes on and on, up to three pages. He prints it out and proudly shows Ryeowook, who rolls his eyes, and goes along with it, if only to appease him.

 

Sometimes, they like to go out together and hang out in restaurants, and when Kyuhyun is trying to forget his feelings he stares at girls (who shudder, because remember, 2008, that time when Kyuhyun looked really, really creepy), and rates them, and engages Ryeowook in a little boy rating too. Or man.

 

And then, he realizes that he’s found a best friend in Super Junior.

 

 

Things all change of course, Sorry Sorry comes out and is a hit, suddenly even the irrelevant members in the band (i.e KRY, aka most talented) are recognized, which severely cuts down their boy (and girl, Kyuhyun reminds himself, and girl.) watching time. They’re all suddenly a bit more famous, and Kyuhyun gets an OST, and their songs win awards. Most importantly, Kyuhyun starts looking less deranged and actually quite cute.

 

Then the year-ends with Kangin punches someone outside a bar, and not a month later, gets into a DUI. Super Junior win a daesang, on the night Han Geng decides to leave. And then he really does leave, which means the end of Super Junior-M for the foreseeable future, which means no more tall Chinese boys begging him to master his Mandarin

 

(Which sucks for Kyuhyun, but is actually kind of good for Ryeowook, because Henry is actually kind of a jerk who doesn’t know a good thing when it’s right in front of him, serving him a huge plate of har gao and singing him songs to accompany him on the violin.

 

Ryeowook doesn’t tell him what happened, but his eyes are sad enough, so Kyuhyun drops it and tells him fiercely, “Canada sucks, it took them so long to win anything at this Olympics.”).

 

Then it’s a new year, and this new group called ZE:A debuts. Their first single is a really irritating song called Mazeltov, and they have a really irritating member called Kwanghee, and a bunch of their members look like other boybands’ members (someone called Heechul, of all names, looks like Ryeowook, and someone looks like Yoochun too, which earns the entire band Changmin’s everlasting hate). But they’re irrelevant to Kyuhyun, so he doesn’t really care.

 

Then Kangin goes off to the army, and Geng goes international. Bonamana happens, Kyuhyun practically gets a new ear, and the whole year is kind of depressing. To top it off, he has a musical and then his eyelids kind of die. Super Junior gets a new show, he gets a project group, Ryeowook does nothing but his cooking gets better.

 

Kyuhyun sees Zhou Mi only sometimes, and it kind of sucks, but. Well. It gives him time to settle his feelings, and he feels all weird and disjointed about it at first, before Ryeowook grins at him, and like Kyuhyun knew without Ryeowook telling him, Ryeowook knows now with Kyuhyun having to say a word.

 

Super Junior-M go at it again, half-heartedly, but strangely, Kyuhyun is happier, more relaxed this time round, like he knows they’re doomed to failure, so might as well get fat and enjoy it. They’re joined by Eunhyuk and Sungmin, and Kyuhyun’s mandarin still kind of sucks, and Henry is still awkward with Ryeowook, so Ryeowook gets back at him by serving him cold food. And then there’s Zhou-Mi, with his inability to get his countrymen to like him.

 

Ryeowook gets a musical, which is awesome, because he’s amazing and talented, even if Kyuhyun thinks the plot is kind of lame, but well, it’s Ryeowook, so Kyuhyun will come to opening night, and cheer the loudest at the curtain call. And after that, during the after party, they’ll get wasted and say dumb things and Ryeowook won’t be able to walk a straight line.

 

Except. There’s a fucking gnat he needs to get rid of.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kyuhyun meddles and tries to set ryeowook up with everyone that fits his criteria so he'll forget hyunshik. but his plan flops ofc because it's terrible. so he decides to hit on hyungshik himself, to show ryeowook that this irrelevant zea member is just trying to get ahead of da game. he makes it worse. featuring side!qmi.


End file.
